Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The State of Things When the ‘Leader’ of the ‘Free World’ is a Puppet

I asked Dr. Vito Caiati, historian, whether Donald Trump's being in office would have made any difference to the present geopolitical mess, and this is what he wrote:

As for the present miserable state of the world, I think that had Trump remained in office neither the war in the Ukraine nor the war in the Middle East would have occurred, or if the former occurred, it would have been resolved on the basis of a territorial compromise concerning the Crimea and robust autonomy for the eastern, Russian majority oblasts.  Leaving aside the origins of the conflict (US interference in the internal politics of the Ukraine and the expansion of NATO eastward), Trump would have put Zelensky and company on tight rein. As for Israel, can we doubt that the appeasement of the Obama-Biden regime towards Iran encouraged the reemergence of terrorism? Now, the plan is to provide public support to Israel, while privately restraining her once again to conduct the war in a way that would deny the complete victory that she requires. With Trump, the war would have not occurred, and if it did, he would not have tied Israel’s hands.

As for the danger of WWIII, it appears to me that the Ukraine mess is a potential trigger for it.  There is no way that the Ukraine can defeat Russia, and I fear that a protracted conflict could lead to further American involvement and the real chance of a great power clash.

With regard to demons and such, I call your attention to what appeared on the Vatican Synod website this week (page 29): “What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, for all that exists.” Thus, the diabolical evil that first showed its face with the Pachamama desecration of St. Peter’s advances further in the Bergoglian Church.    

I agree in the main, but Caiati's final sentence prompts me to ask: Is Bergoglio proposing mercy for demons in which he believes? Or is the truly Bergoglian termiticism and diabolism due to his tacit denial of the reality of demons?

No doubt demons are creatures, but does Bergoglio and his fellow clerical termites believe in their existence? I don't know but I suspect he doesn't and they don't. How many Catholic priests today believe in the  preternatural? I suspect it is a minority.  The preternatural is the sphere within which demonic agents operate. It lies between the natural  and the supernatural.  See Ralph Weimann, Sacramentals: Their Meaning and Use, p. 196: "In the period after the Second Vatican Council, and under the influence of rationalism, it was increasingly considered 'unscientific' to speak about angels and even more unscientific to speak about demons."

At a time when the RCC should be standing as a bulwark against the anti-civilizational forces of Chinese Communism, Islamism, and  Leftism, it is transforming itself under the termitic influence of Bergoglio & Co. into just another pile of secular leftist junk. 

But how could anyone in this enlightened age believe in such medieval superstitions as the existence of demons?  Hasn't humanity finally put paid to this old nonsense?  Maybe not. Maybe there is no naturalistic explanation of the depth and depravity of human behavior. Perhaps an adequate explanation must posit the preternatural. See my Substack article, The Holocaust Argument for God's Existence wherein I write:

As a sort of inference to the best explanation we can say that moral evil in its extreme manifestations has a supernatural source. It cannot be explained adequately in naturalistic terms.  There is an Evil Principle (and Principal) the positing of which is reasonable. The undeniable reality of evil has  a metaphysical ground.  Call it Satan or whatever you like.

In that passage I am using 'supernatural' to cover both the supernatural proper and the preternatural. 'Preternatural' would have been the better, because more specific, word choice. But then I would have had to explain 'preternatural' which would have lengthened the piece. Brevity is the soul of Stack and not just of blog.

Now I would like you to take a gander at this Daily Mail article and rub your noses in recent Hamas-Islamist barbarity. Could the source of this evil be merely natural?

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Bill Vallicella

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13 responses to “The State of Things When the ‘Leader’ of the ‘Free World’ is a Puppet”

  1. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Bergoglio has forgotten this prayer:
    Saint Michael defend us in battle, protect us against the wickedness and snares of the devil; God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls.
    That’s part of the Rosary, too, & I suppose he has forgotten that?
    Anyway Bergoglio faces the wrong way at Mass.

    Reply
  2. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    “No doubt demons are creatures, but does Bergoglio and his fellow clerical termites believe in their existence? I don’t know but I suspect he doesn’t and they don’t.”
    I too doubt that Bergoglio and his ilk believe in demons, but they are making good use of them to further their systematic program of undermining a central dogma of the Church, one founded on the teachings and actions of Our Lord himself, which is that salvation from sin depends on true repentance and the turning away from evil, on or radical alteration in one’s life through penance and spiritual conversion. Beginning with the infamous “who am I to judge”; to the intentionally insidious footnotes 351 (suggesting that people in “irregular situations” [that is, in sinful states] may receive the Eucharist) and 329 (suggesting the children of people in second, irregular may be harmed if sexual relations are proscribed) of Amoris Laetitia; to the warm embrace repeatedly given to atheists, abortion practitioners and advocates, heretics, brutal dictators, and so on; and to the current cause célèbre, the blessing of sodomitic unions, sin is constantly relativized and minimized. The dogmatic insistence that redemption depends on metanoia is hence abandoned in practice and increasingly in theory. Theological confusion and heresy have thus gained the high ground in the Church, and only the most legalistically minded believers can take solace that the words of the Catechism have, with the exception of the death penalty, not yet been changed. This moral relativism explains the references to demons, who, although the evilest beings in creation, the causes of the damnation of countless human souls, are not apparently beyond our mercy. So rather than the traditional judgement of the Church, as expressed by St. Thomas in the Summa “that the name of demon is given to designate a nature deformed by sin, wherefore demons should not be loved out of charity,” they now must receive it. Thus, evil itself is not to be shunned. But, as should be obvious, the function of including the demons in the circle of mercy is precisely to employ them as a wedge to allow for the entry of the countless others who refuse the hard road of repentance. This is open heresy and apostacy.

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  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    That is quite a statement, Vito. I have nothing of substance to add. I will only say that, for people like you and me, nearing the end of the trail, it would be wonderful to be able to return to the church of our boyhood even if we can’t swallow every jot and tittle of trad RC doctrine. But that bastard Begoglio has made that impossible. What non-nefarious motive could he have for banning he Latin mass?

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    “Novus ordo”
    It occurred to me the other day that we are being mocked with that phrase: get rid of the old LATIN rite, but do so using a Latin phrase.

    Reply
  5. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    The Church is already in an undeclared schism, riven apart by profound and unreconcilable differences in theology and liturgy. Broad sections of it, as in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Latin America, and some American dioceses and parishes, have already embraced heretical beliefs and liturgical practices. Meanwhile, the great mass of the institution lives under the intentionally protestantized ideology—ecumenicalism, indifferentism, universalism—and liturgy—the so-called Novus Ordo, a rite offensive to the spiritual and aesthetic sensibilities of man and unworthy of God, that came into being with and after Vatican II, while at the same time maintaining its commitment to a hyperpapalism, born of the desire to protect orthodoxy but not the principal means of its undoing. Still, a small but not insignificant minority of Catholics–those tied to the SSPX, the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the Sovereign Priest, other priestly societies, and many local parishes remain doctrinally and liturgically orthodox. So, the Catholic Church continues within an institution that is either not entirely Catholic or openly heretical, the Bergoglian Church. We are, in a sense, back to the situation of the early centuries, as for instance in Arian times, when only islands of orthodoxy survived in much of the Late Empire. The problem for people of like you and me is that the current islands are spread far apart, making them hard to reach. I have been lucky in this regard, having an old priest in a parish near my home who is orthodox in his theology and who has the rare right to offer the traditional Latin Mass. I attend it every Sunday, but I am careful to support only the parish, making sure that not a dime goes to the bishops, supporters of the Demo lead invasion at the southern border and much else that is bad. He will retire soon, and then, since I refuse to attend a “Novus Ordo” service, I will be without the Mass and so effectively no longer practicing, except for private prayer, since the nearest TLM is forty minutes away by car. I will have, in effect, been purged, which is the intention of Bergoglio and his hateful Traditionis custodes.

    Reply
  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    Vito,
    One of the many reasons I value you highly as an interlocutor is that you are aware of developments in Rome to any extent that I could never be, in part because you read the Italian newspapers. So please keep me updated. I agree with everything you say above.
    As for the ‘Catholic’ bishops who are “supporters of the Demo-led invasion at the southern border,” may a pox, but no PAX, be upon them. What are they thinking? Can they think in a disciplined way at all about what is actually the case? I prefer not to impute nefarious motives to them, but it is hard not to.
    As I have insisted a hundred times, “no comity without commonality,” a truth which is now being shoved in our faces more forcefully than ever during the last two weeks. Wide open borders will soon lead to endless cycles of violence here that we have been witnessing in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world for centuries.
    It is also passing strange that leftists take the side of Islamic radicals when these very leftists with their atheist and libertine values would be the first to lose their heads — literally — should the jihadis achieve the dominance they seek.
    Can you explain that, Vito?

    Reply
  7. BV Avatar
    BV

    Hi Brother Bill
    Regarding the novus ordo mass in contrast to the church of our
    childhood, I am appending a photo from 1945: US soldiers at mass in
    the Cathedral of Cologne, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White.
    I do not think those MEN needed, or wanted a chummy and sweet,
    kissy-poo Mass with mutual hand shaking.
    I myself do not want that now.
    We are very probably heading into times like those men in the photo were
    experiencing, and they needed the real thing, as will we, shortly, I do
    believe.
    We had better get it back.
    I can’t stand the “no” mass; the visual symbolism to me, an architect
    who does not primarily think in words, is that the priest has turned his
    back on God. That is what the About Face says to me, and very strongly.
    I understand buildings and their uses. There is no mistaking it.
    The photo is in the file at the right, or below. The men are kneeling in
    rubble from the vaults above. Some of them have rifles. In church. They
    are there for the strongest support they can get. And if I had a time
    machine I’d go back.
    Joe Odegaard.

    Reply
  8. BV Avatar
    BV

    Bro Joe sez:
    >>I can’t stand the “no” mass; the visual symbolism to me, an architect
    who does not primarily think in words, is that the priest has turned his
    back on God. That is what the About Face says to me, and very strongly.
    I understand buildings and their uses. There is no mistaking it.<< I take your point. NO = Novus Ordo. The hidden meaning of the About Face is the transformation of RC Christianity into an insipid form of humanism. Confession is now called 'reconciliation.' What an asinine innovation! Perhaps you two can comment on that.

    Reply
  9. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    “Reconciled” raises man too much. I don’t want to be mutual with God. I want to be forgiven.
    And here is a link to the photo of the US Soldiers at mass in the rubble of the Cathedral of Cologne, 1945:
    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/19/bc/86/19bc862ad35e2306b1d9e6532212ab5f.jpg

    Reply
  10. BV Avatar
    BV

    Joe,
    Great photo.
    I agree about reconciliation.
    I tried to call you on my smart phone, twice. You and then Annette picked up but nothing came through from me to you.

    Reply
  11. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    It is also passing strange that leftists take the side of Islamic radicals when these very leftists with their atheist and libertine values would be the first to lose their heads — literally — should the jihadis achieve the dominance they seek.
    Can you explain that, Vito?
    I may well be wrong, but for me, it is explained by the Left’s (1) visceral hatred of the established order—the West, the US, capitalism, etc. which takes precedence over all else—coupled with its irradicable utopianism. These two factors explain its long history of overlooking, minimizing., apologizing for, and rationalizing the actions and programs of a variety of lethal and genocidal actors and groups, from the Communist regimes of Stalin and Mao and the Castro brothers to certain murderous Third World “liberation” movements. In recent decades, this dispensation for evil is granted particularly to those regarded as part of a “subjugated” race, ethnicity, or religion, such as the Islamists, all who are seen as victims and righteously enraged but who, as part of a global movement of liberation, are regarded as allies and not as potential executioners: hate overcomes fear, latent or otherwise.

    Reply
  12. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    We only have a stupid phone, attached to the wall … I will try to call you.

    Reply
  13. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    The esteemed readers of this blog might ponder the fact that the world of 1945, in which the US soldiers knelt at mass in the rubble of the Cathedral of Cologne, had a much stronger, and better attended Catholic Church than we now have in 2023; and yet in that time the World Wars came anyway; and what woe awaits us now with less moral guidance and strength?
    God help us all, and get ready as best as you can.

    Reply

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